


The Hit

by thegreymoon



Series: Kinkalot 2019 [6]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Arthur Pendragon Returns (Merlin), F/M, Homophobia, M/M, Modern Era, Murderous Merlin, Past Gwen/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Past Gwen/Lancelot (Merlin), Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-17 07:34:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20617322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegreymoon/pseuds/thegreymoon
Summary: Merlin does not take kindly to people coming after Arthur.





	The Hit

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Kinkalot's](https://kinkalot.livejournal.com/) [Bonus Challenge 4: Risky Business](https://kinkalot.livejournal.com/8154.html)

Merlin had spent hundreds of years preparing for The Second Coming of Arthur. He was told it would happen at a time of great danger and strife. It was prophesised. He’d been expecting an apocalypse at the very least, and in any case, it’s not like Arthur was a stranger to violence and people aiming sharp, pointy things at his pretty, golden head. But as the grainy footage unfolded, Merlin realised he wasn’t ready.

“Emrys!” the voice seemed distant, unreal. He was cold all over, his face pale and his blood turned to sludge. A low-level hooligan coming at Arthur with an iron bar was beyond his ability to comprehend. He was going to kill him, he was going to kill them all! They had no idea how many ways he had of ending them, in this life and in the afterlife! Fifteen hundred years of grief and waiting, and here was this miserable, homophobic thug swinging a second-grade, makeshift weapon at the man he loved.

“Emrys!”

Merlin had hiding down to an art, he had been all in favour of keeping a low profile, but it was not in Arthur’s nature. Arthur didn’t want to hide ever again, Arthur wanted the entire world to know that Merlin was his – nothing would force him back into the closet in this new age of open affection, were couples walked down the street holding hands and kissed on park benches, and where two men could marry under the law. He was so exhilarated in his newfound freedom, he shone like a beacon – beautiful, happy and uninhibited – and it was only a matter of time before he attracted the wrong type of attention. They couldn’t stand it. They had wanted to teach him a lesson.

“Emrys!”

The lesson didn't end well for them, of course. Arthur wasn’t remembered as Britain’s greatest warrior for no reason. A group of modern-day wannabe tough guys armed with crowbars wasn't going to be a match for him. He knew how to handle bandits, but that didn’t change the fact that they had come after him in the first place, and as far as Merlin was concerned, that was just as bad as if they had succeeded. Simply killing them would not suffice. He was so angry, he could barely maintain his hold on the dark, roiling magic, just under his fingertips.

_“Emrys!!”_

The voice in the background had escalated to shouting before it managed to snap him out of his murderous trance. When he came to, he realised he was shaking.

The detective was glaring at him, irritated and so not in the mood to be dealing with him after he’d clearly told him the last time (when he’d bailed Gwaine, Percy and Elyan out for drunk and disorderly conduct) that he never wanted to see any of their troublemaking mugs in his precinct again.

Which had worked fine, for a whole two days.

“Are you even listening to me?”

“Why am I here, Detective?” Merlin asked.

“I thought you might want to explain.”

“Explain what?” Merlin’s voice was ice cold. He spoke in a tone that he found shut people up very quickly when coupled with a particularly intense look of his haunted eyes. But Detective Moran was not most people. He had seen things and didn’t scare easily. He knew Merlin was trouble, he had told him so, to his face, the first day he had moved into his neighbourhood.

“About your _boyriend_,” Moran said. “You lied to me."

Merlin blinked at him. _Lied_ did not even begin to cover it, but what was he going to do? Tell him the truth?

“He’s ex-military, isn’t he?” Moran continued and Merlin raised an eyebrow. The guess was… accurate. Medieval military, but Merlin supposed it still counted, since the art of killing people in hand-to-hand combat had not changed much. In fact, Merlin was confident that Arthur had pioneered some of the training methods that were still in use.

“He took some martial arts classes,” Merlin said, and it was not exactly a lie. _I’ve been trained to kill since birth_, indeed.

“Don’t bullshit me, you shady little fucker! I know combat training when I see it!”

“Not sure what you’re aiming at, Detective.”

“Who are you?”

“You’ve run our IDs through every system there is by now, I don’t know what more you want me to tell you!”

“Yes, it's been most informative!” Moran sneered. “Take you, for example – no paper trail, no verifiable career history, everything paid for in cash! Murky childhood, minimal formal education for someone with skillsets it takes people university degrees to acquire! By your own account, you backpacked up and down the country, living off the grid, with no property to your name, until suddenly, extensive wealth was left to you by a hermit Great Uncle who, right after signing the will, conveniently vanished without a trace!”

Merlin shrugged.

“He did leave a note.”

The detective leaned forward, crowding him.

“Just because I can’t prove a murder without a body doesn’t mean there wasn’t one,” he said. “You don’t fool me!”

Merlin did not respond to the threatening stance. He knew better than anyone that Great Uncle Myrddin was just fine and that there would never be a body to find. He was still not used to walking around without the glamour spell, it left him feeling naked after all the long centuries he’d spent hiding behind it, but the old man veneer made Arthur irrationally angry.

“Where is Arthur, Detective?” Merlin said flatly. “Have you got him here too, trying to pin non-existent bodies on him?”

“Ah, Arthur,” Moran said, leaning back. “Now there is a man who knows how to kill. I bet his body count is higher than yours!”

Merlin considered this. He was sceptical, because his own body count was quite high and he had centuries of advantage in that regard, but then again, Arthur had been on the battlefield since his early teens. Under the circumstances, bodies tended to… pile up.

“Are they dead?” Merlin asked, cocking his head towards the screen, not with little regret.

“No,” Moran said, the corner of his lip curling. “Not one! But they are going to be incapacitated for a long, long time! Not enough to stop them from going to trial, though. It must take a lot of practice to know exactly when to stop. How to do the most damage without actually killing.”

Oh, good. So Merlin got to kill them after all. He would show none of Arthur’s self-restraint.

“What’s your point?” he asked.

“He’s a secret operative of some kind, isn’t he? The rest of your buddies are clearly military too. Civilian life doesn’t suit them, they don’t blend in well at all.”

_“What?”_

“The government is protecting you, isn’t it? That’s why your fake identities are so good and I can’t find any cracks.”

Merlin laughed, amused but offended at the suggestion that he would need the help of an incompetent government to create foolproof forgeries. He was much, much better at it than they would ever be.

“You’ve been watching too many movies, Detective,” Merlin said. “Come now, stop wasting my time. Where is Arthur? Is he under arrest?”

“No,” the detective sighed. “He has made quite a bit of progress since the last time I had him in my interrogation room. He told me all about the college classes he’s taking now. Law. He knows his rights well.”

Law was Arthur's passion, even though Merlin couldn’t for the life of him understand the appeal. Still, he was supportive. Getting Arthur into law school hadn't been a problem. Arthur was a prince, his education had been extensive, his Latin was perfect, and the gaps were relatively easy to bridge. There weren’t any downsides that Merlin could see to him wanting to know how the modern state worked and learning how to socialize properly among the people of this time. He had taken Gwen with him, but she had chosen social studies instead. Their interests complemented each other perfectly and they thrived in their redefined partnership. It was only a matter of time before they got a hang of this new world and continued where they had left off, and Merlin was so proud of them, he felt he would burst. He brought them snacks when they studied and herded away the knights when they were being too loud. He chastised Gwaine when he used their books as drink coasters and did his best to comfort Leon as he wandered around, lost and disoriented, not knowing what to make of the rekindled relationship between his King and Queen. Gwen explained herself to no man now, nor tied herself to one, and Leon couldn’t figure out where that left him, now that both his dead and much-mourned rivals were back among the living. He wouldn't step back for Lancelot, who had already disgraced her and walked away so many times, but he would for his King. He could love them both in silence if that was required, but Arthur openly slept in Merlin’s bed every night now and Leon was confused by what that meant, when his relationship with Gwen had somehow gotten even closer in spite – or maybe because – of it.

“Arthur is the top student in his class,” Merlin bragged because he just couldn’t help himself. “Law suits him well!”

“Well, let’s hope he gets to graduate.”

“What do you mean?”

“It may be time to pull your strings again,” Moran said. “Because trouble is just about to begin.”

“Why? This is self-defence, it’s clear-cut. I may not be the expert, but obviously, they attacked him first. He was walking alone, unarmed when they jumped him. He tried to walk away, warned them nicely, but they insisted. Twelve against one, the cowards. You even have a video to prove it! What better strings do we need? He didn’t even kill any of them!”

“You see that little punk?” Moran pointed to an angry, scrawny, troll of a guy. “He had to be wheeled into surgery. Cracked skull. Ruptured spleen. Four broken ribs. Arm broken, a particularly nasty spiral fracture, from what I’ve been told. His jaw had to be wired shut.”

“So?”

“That would be little Johnny Highmore.”

Merlin looked at him blankly.

“The son of John William Highmore III.”

“And I’m supposed to know who that is because…?”

“He sits on the city council,” Moran said. “His brother is the Baron FitzWalter, and a High Court judge.”

Merlin was bored already.

“And you see that other punk?” Moran pointed to a burlier one with terrible posture and overlong arms, like those of an ape. “That is Tommy Lee.”

“Another upstanding member of high-class society?”

“On the contrary,” Moran said. “His father is Freddie Swine.”

“Swine?”

“He has a pig farm a few miles out of the city. He’s under investigation for at least nine deaths, all would-be witnesses in high profile cases, but we can’t make anything stick because, would you believe it, there are no bodies to find. But then again, you would know all about missing bodies, wouldn’t you.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you don’t!” Moran crowed. “The point is, his only son is in surgery at this moment, where they are trying to repair his spinal column. If he survives, it’s likely he will never walk again.”

“How sad,” Merlin yawned. There was no chance he was surviving, he would make sure of that.

“You don’t get it, do you?” Moran said.

“Get what?”

“The amount of shit your boyfriend’s in! If I was him, I would be very, very worried.”

It was unlike Arthur to ever be worried about his own safety when bandits and corrupt nobles were involved, but luckily, he had Merlin to worry for him. His hit list was expanding and the detective was right, though not for the reasons he thought. Merlin did know how to make bodies disappear. He didn't have a pig farm of his own, but he had baby dragons. He was sure they would do the job credibly.


End file.
